On MGTOWforums.com, Marcus20 offers a dire warning for all of his fellow Men Going Their Own Way who may not yet be Going Their Own Way thoroughly enough.
This is a gender war. Some men don’t know there’s a war. But almost every man feels something is wrong.
Some men who know there’s a gender war haven’t identified all of the weapons that are being arrayed against them.
One of these weapons is a wyman’s make-up.
Make-up is an unconventional weapon, and it’s often unrecognized as a threat.
That’s right, fellas. These women will stop at nothing to deceive and control you. Even if that means resorting to (gasp!) eye shadow.
WAKE UP to the MAKEUP!
[I]magine, if you please, a man with his face covered in war paint. Consider the men at the end of Apocalypse Now. Consider the warriors of the Sioux, the warriors in African tribes. Consider modern American soldiers.
Why do warriors wear face paint? The reason isn’t only camouflage. There is a psychological component to the mask.
You see paint on a man’s face– and you immediately and correctly identify him as a threat. But put the same paint on a woman’s face, and your reaction is quite different.
We are so accustomed to seeing women wearing paint that it never strikes us as odd.
Actually, I’m pretty sure if I saw a woman painted up like the dudes in Apocalypse Now I might give her a second look.
But there used to be widespread opposition to women wearing make-up. In Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, published in 1766, the vicar vigorously disapproves of his wife and daughters preparing various washes and powders for their faces. The Bible mentions “painted Jezebels.” At one time, make-up on a woman’s face signaled to all that she was a prostitute.
Today, make-up is accepted. Ho hum. Nothing to see here . . . The best weapon is one your enemy doesn’t see.
They call it “concealer” for a reason! For it conceals the dark and evil heart of the modern woman! Or something.
Imagine an average-looking girl, just reaching adolescence. She puts on make-up– and she is attracting the attention of boys, when she wasn’t before. It takes her but a moment to realize they are attracted not to her–whoever she is, she doesn’t know herself– but to her paint.
She concludes that men are attracted by paint. It immediately, and from the beginning of her sexual interactions with men, makes her relations with the opposite sex less real. She is always aware that the paint on her face is manipulating him.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that “paint” doesn’t have much to do with any of this. I think it might just happen to have something to do with the flood of hormones coursing through the bodies of adolescent boys.
Day after day, for years, for decades, she paints herself as if she is a thing: and she becomes soulless.
That also happens if she puts on cute outfits. If you stare too long at a cute outfit, the cute outfit stares back at you!
The more you think about this, the more you realize that this is terrifying. Imagine if you — a man — painted your face everyday and presented that face to the world as if it’s yours. Immediately, you will feel disassociated from yourself. Immediately: scheming, lying, deceit become easier. Even murder becomes easier.
Er, what?
Roughly 90% of murders are committed by men, and I’m pretty sure very few of them are wearing makeup at the time.
Villains wear masks. Wearing a mask makes it easier to do evil. Darth Vader and even your typical bank robber . . .
The mask allows a woman to act out her evil impulses while telling herself the lie that she herself isn’t doing it.
That’s right. You start by putting on a little lipstick and mascara, and the next thing you know you’re destroying peaceful planets with your Death Star.
It is absurd for a man to allow himself to be attracted by paint.
Better to be repulsed by women who wear make-up. To see them as clowns. To see them as strange masks. To see the mask as the truth of what she has become, after a decade of painting her face: a lie that she wears everyday. Because after years of wearing a mask, you become it.
The same thing happens with other things you wear. After years of wearing underwear, you become underwear! After years of wearing socks, you become a sock! After years of wearing hats, you become a hat!
My niece, age five, recently attended a make-up party for children her age. She now owns a make-up collection. She is five years old and already wears a mask.
Isn’t there something disturbing about that?
Well, yeah, but not for the reason you think.
Look at youtube. There are videos that have millions of views — all about eleven year old girls who use massive amounts of make-up (and time) to make themselves look like Barbie or a doll or a cartoon character.
(And women still tell me: “Just wait — you’ll find someone who shares your interests.” What?)
Actually, I’m pretty sure you won’t find a woman who shares your interests, dude, given that one of your interests is writing posts about how wearing makeup turns women into Darth Vader.
Today we have girls, age five, wearing make-up … I therefore predict an even more soulless horde of wymen in our future. …
I submit that women would be much less evil if they never wore masks. I submit that women would be much more humble as to their true attractiveness and therefore, less entitled, if they never wore masks. I submit that men would be better able to judge who is really beautiful if women never wore masks. …
The first step is to stop being manipulated by paint. Look behind the mask — and the face isn’t there.
Uh, no. That’s not reality you’re talking about here. That’s the movie Eyes Without a Face.
Naturally, the eminently sensible fellows at MGTOWforums.com applaud Marcus20’s lucid analysis of how makeup turns girls and women into Sith Lords.
“Since everything within a woman is a motherfucking lie, it makes sense that the outside would be as well,” writes the aptly-named Womanhater.
ANY twat who claims to be ‘equal’ and yet wears make-up is a fucking hypocrite! The ENTIRE purpose of makeup is to feign sexual arousal and attraction – red lips, blushed cheeks, etc. all signal men on a subconscious level that the twat is sexually attracted to you. This in turn makes the uninitiated blue-pillers in our ranks turn into putty in their hands. The ONLY reason a twat wears make-up is to have an easier time manipulating you or extracting resources from you. Period. Full stop.
MrWombat, perhaps inspired by neo-Nazi nonsense about “blood in the face,” suggests that clever use of concealer can indeed conceal women’s essential dishonesty:
Makeup is crucial to being able to lie face-to-face to someone. Normal people blush when they lie, blanch when they have taken an emotional hit. Foundation conceals that, and women consciously feel foundation to be a mask, a disguise, a defense.
I eagerly await Marcus20’s analysis of the Big Lie that is the Wonderbra.
I’ve not read the book but have seen the movies. This one had the most impact on me: http://mubi.com/films/lolita
The main male character was not sympathetic in this version. He became obssessed with this teen girl and did everything wrong. If I remember right, the opening credits is a pair of male hands painting female toenails. (shrug) I thought it was shocking for the time period. The girl was more sympathetic to me. Her life was not easy and was made more difficult because others exploited her.
I just looked up Drop dead Red, I think I have to get that. Hourglass’ Icon is a great too, and that shit does not budge.
Some Gal – yeah, I figure most people have seen the Kubrick one. I hear the Jeremy Irons one is a bit truer to the book (for one thing, it apparently keeps her age as 12-13, while the Kubrick one apparently ages her up to 16). I haven’t seen either, so I can’t say much.
But even if the Kubrick movie is 100% “precocious seductress” (thus excusing why people who have watched it take that away from it), that still means that Kubrick looked at the book and made it into… that. It just makes me feel that there is something deeply f*cked up in our culture if anyone – including the moviemaker! – can look at this book and instead of seeing “brilliant and deeply chilling portrayal of child sexual abuse and the self-justifications of a predator” sees “tempting underage minx luring good man to his doom”.
Hellkell, is its undertone blue-y or orange-y? I am currently in the market for another go-to red lipstick. Red lipstick -provided it’s the right red lipstick- can be fabulous on dark brown skin but… the undertones have to be just right.
This is going to be like that bra-sizing discussion, right? The trolls will naturally stay away?
Ninja’ed by Tina! Seems like even watching the Kubrick version and walking away with “Lolita is the predator” would take some wtf-ness.
This ties into abuse narratives and the idea of joking about abuse, doesn’t it? A normal person’s “that’s obviously not true” is an abuser’s “see, this is normal behavior!”
It’s a very blue-red. I’m so pale with blue tones I almost glow in the dark, so I can’t do orange reds.
Hourglass lipsticks are refillable, too.
I hope this keeps the trolls at bay. I’ll start talking eyeshadow if it doesn’t.
@Neurite
It really seems like people have to already believe some fucked up things about little girls to see the movies (or read the book) and walk away thinking that they demonstrate that little girls are seductresses. At this point, I think it is a bit of a vicious circle where people hear that Lolita means temptress, see the movie (or read the book) expecting to see that, and ignore everything that doesn’t confirm what they already thought. Then, the perpetuate that Lolita means temptress. Basically, the Lolita issue is rape culture in miniature, which feeds from and into the larger rape culture. Grr.
I recommend the Jeremy Irons film, though, if you are ever interested in seeing a film version. I think unreliable narrators always come off as more reliable in film, which is a problem for a work like Lolita, but watching the film grapple with it is interesting in its own right.
Did somebody just say that Lolita was 12 or 13 in the book?!? Ugh and Arggg. Even the 1962 version she was upped to at least 15 or 16. The actress had to be in her 20’s because her figure was quite well formed and lovely. Of course, all 16 year olds look like that. (thanks, hollywood) If this is “normal human behavior” then, again, I’m glad I’m going to be dead in a few decades.
Red lipstick is tricky. I found testing is best. However, this testing was done at Macy’s and the cosmetics there are expensive. I had bought many drugstore reds that were nice but not suitable. After adding up the cost of those reds I realized I could have bought one good quality red and been much happier. Lancome’s newest lipstick (Rouge in Love, I think) has a very light feel. Chanel always has rich, creamy colors. MAC has a good selection, sweet scent and different finishes. I’ve read that Tom Ford’s colors and textures for lips are amazing but they aren’t sold in my area and are way too far out of my price range anyway. That’s not to say that if they were sold around here that I wouldn’t be testing. Oh, heck, I’d be purchasing…who am I kidding. It’s the ultimate pampering for me: luxury lippies.
The search for the perfect red lipstick can be both time consuming and expensive. But, if you’re the sort of person who enjoys lipstick, it can also be completely worth it. Contrary to the delusional dumb-fuckery of the OP, red lipstick looks completely and delightfully unnatural. It isn’t trying to trick anyone into anything.
But it can be charming and sweet, and evocative and provocative, and it says unequivocally “I made an effort.”
I can never forgive Lolita for all the other stuff it has spawned. Lolicon, supid lolita fashion, stupid lolita hentai…
Tina, yes, Lolita is 12 when the narrator first meets her in the book and his abuse of her goes on for around a year. He also explicitly states right at the beginning of the book that his target range of “nymphets” he finds sexually attractive is 9-14, and that once girls hit puberty and get a womanly shape they become repulsive to him. He actually worries that Lolita is already so close to his upper age range and will likely get too old for him soon. In one especially troubling passage, he daydreams about getting her pregnant to ensure another young girl for him to abuse later, and even fantasizes about having a “happy family” of three generations of victims, with grandpa Humbert now abusing the preteen granddaughter.
Again, it’s not subtle, not something where you can go “okay, with some societal preconceived notions I can understand how someone might read that as a young seductress story”. The fact that it’s a pedophile abuser is very clear, which is why I’m so shocked about people actually managing to misread it anyways. How???
Lolita is only possible to misread if you are very stupid, have never read a book in your life, or possess some deeply fucked up “morals.” The narrator is unreliable but the events of the books are undeniable; sobbing, pain, avoidance, escape attempts… that little girl was seducing no one, unless you find a miserable, desperate child seductive.
Oh my God, Humbert Humbert is NWOslave.
I have to say I absolutely loved the book, though; it was a quicker read than I thought it would be, and I occasionally had the most bizarre cognitive dissonance between “oh no, they’ll be caught!” and “please, please let him get caught!” It was really compelling, and sickening, and brilliantly done.
I used to have a housemate into all the loli-dressing. Never got it myself but, whatever floats your boat. But I think there’s a divergence between ‘styles people would like even if Lolita never existed but use Lolita as a convenient shorthand’ and ‘borderline paedophilia which people think is legit because literature’?
Found the problem.
Tina: ” Even if this girl tempted him he is still the adult in the situation and should not be having any kind of relationship with a teen girl. …I don’t give a damn if this teen girl stripped in front of him. He is not a victim.”
Amen. I wrote a comment in an earlier thread about how teenage me, being clueless and hormone-wracked, flirted with adult men, and how these men all managed to do the right thing and not take me up on my misguided attempts. Because that was the right thing to do, and they were adults and perfectly capable of doing it. It’s not rocket surgery.
Sorry to bring this around to Lolita yet again (I just agree with Some Gal, it’s such an iconic reflection of icky cultural stuff), but I know at least one person who read the book (no movie excuse here!) and yet walked away thinking that “she was partly at fault too” because she’d had a crush on Humbert and had flirted with him.
Which yes, she did. She originally had a crush on him. And the farthest she went with that (before, y’know, he drugged and raped her, after her mother had been brutally killed in an accident and he’d abducted her) was that she wrote his initials on a poster of a heartthrob actor who looked kinda like him. How could he possibly resist such devilish wiles?!
People really have issues with unreliable narrators, though. I don’t understand it how it can be so shocking to people because everyone has had at least one experience with being lied to IRL or how it can be so anger-inducing when only a handful of books/movies do it anyway. I haven’t read any of the reviews myself, but the boyfriend says that (spoiler alert, I guess) viewer reactions to the second Blair Witch movie seem to paint unreliable narration as something immoral and unforgiveable. I don’t know where people get ideas like that about fiction (which hello! is lying to you anyway), but I think that weirdness is part of it. They are definitely a bit dense, though.
For some reason people want to believe the narrator and so have to choose between believing what the narrator wants to believe in Lolita and believing what actually happens. Once you are at that point (which I don’t understand), I do kinda get choosing the less fucked up, “it isn’t really abuse” story. Those people certainly don’t deserve to be reading great literature in the first place (half-joking), but I do almost understand wanting to forget about the awful things Humbert does in favor of the ridiculous fantasy he tells himself. I don’t understand how they do it, but I can sortable understand why.
*sorta
Of course. It just seriously interferes with my ability to think about the book without an instant association of stupid Japanese subcultures.
My. hellkell, I chased that comment down. Textbook passive aggressive; with a fair bit of self-valorisation. It got some external validation too.
Precious.
Bagelsan, totally agree. The book itself was brilliant. And yes, unambiguously about an abused child. The kind of spot-on details that the author includes can get really upsetting. (More TW below.)
And yet again, I’ve seen just those details twisted into rationalizations that she was somehow “into it” or “partially at fault”. For example, at one point the narrator complains about how later on in the abuse, when he rapes Lolita, she doesn’t even pay attention, she seems nonchalant and focuses on something completely different, and disregards his dick “as if it were something she had sat upon, a shoe, a doll, the handle of a tennis racket, and was too indolent to remove” (actual book quote) – and that hurts his precious feelings. And people point at that to say “see, she wasn’t that upset by it”. Not that, y’know, dissociating and removing yourself from what is happening is a textbook example of a survival behavior of a repeatedly abused child. Again, excellent observation by the author, headdesky misreading by readers.
Pecunium: isn’t it just? I saw that and thought that someone is seriously deluded to think that we’d go around the web trashing her. No, we’ll keep it right here, thanks. I hope she never goes to Pharyngula or another site with zero patience for nonsense. The pearl clutching would never end.
We shall see if she stops following my blog. I left a comment about the nature of her post.